Glossary

Payments to the State Unemployment Compensation Fund from employers' quarterly tax filings required by Title 19 § 3302.

The first four of the last five completed calendar quarters prior to a claim for unemployment benefits.

Example: If the claim date is December 1st, 2016, then the base period is from the third quarter of 2015 through the second quarter of 2016.

ORIGINAL EXAMPLE: Claim Date- 12/01/16 Base period – 16-3, 16-2, 16-1, 15-4 and 15-3

An employer's benefit wage ratio, as of June 30th of the preceding calendar year, determines their tax rate (or basic assessment rate) for a calendar year.

The payments payable to an individual, as provided in Title 19 § 3302, based on their unemployment.

Businesses who operate in Delaware must have a Division of Revenue Business License, and must renew their license annually. (There is also a three-year renewal option.)

Any person or entity conducting a trade or business in the State of Delaware is required to obtain a Delaware business license from the Delaware Division of Revenue. This includes entities located in Delaware who conduct their business outside of the state. A business license must be obtained at the time business commences in Delaware. If you are unsure of whether or not you have substantial presence in Delaware to be subject to licensing and taxation, complete and submit the Nexus Questionnaire and the Delaware Division of Revenue will provide guidance: Nexus Questionnaire.

Once licensed, businesses must pay Delaware Gross Receipts tax.

There are other types of business licenses, certifications and registrations that are issued by separate offices and you may be subject to licensing requirements in the city, town, or municipality in which your business operations are based. Please see the list of all licenses on Business First Steps, or contact your municipality for further licensing requirements.

One of the four three-month periods in a year which ends March 31, June 30, September 30, or December 31.

The computation date is the date when the Division determines if the employer is eligible to be considered as a rated employer or a new employer.

An employee's benefit wages are those wages earned by an employee during the base period.

An employer is any business which after December 31st, 1971, in any calendar quarter in the current or preceding calendar year, paid wages of $1,500 or more. These wages must have been for some portion of a day in each of 20 different calendar weeks, whether or not such weeks were consecutive. And, in either the current or preceding calendar year, the business must have employed at least one individual (irrespective of whether the same individual was in employment on each such day).

Employer's Benefit Wages are the total of all employee benefit wages paid by an employer during any year.

For the purpose of unemployment insurance coverage, employment is defined as any service, unless specifically excluded, performed by an individual for remuneration under a contract of hire, whether the contract is written or oral, express or implied.

"Employment" also includes:

1. Service performed by an individual in the employ of this state or its local governments.
2. Service performed by an individual employed by a religious, charitable, educational or other organization, if the organization had four or more individuals in employment for some portion of a day in each of 20 different weeks, whether or not the weeks were consecutive. An exception to this provision would be church-related schools.
3. Services performed by officers of closely held corporations on or after January 1st, 1996 are considered covered employment and the wages earned by these corporate officers are subject to unemployment insurance tax.

An experience year is the four consecutive calendar quarters from July 1st of a year to June 30th of the next year.

'FEIN' stands for Federal Employer Identification Number, which is assigned by the Federal IRS. To determine if you need a FEIN, please visit the IRS website

Foreign qualification is the process of registering a legal entity—considered domestic to the jurisdiction where it was formed and foreign to all other jurisdictions—as a foreign entity in the jurisdiction in which it operates. Under Delaware law, this process is required if a foreign corporation or LLC is conducting business within the State of Delaware.

Businesses that operate in Delaware must pay Delaware's Gross Receipts Tax (GRT). This tax is on the total gross revenues of a business, regardless of their source. It's levied on the seller of goods or services, rather than on the consumer. Gross receipts tax rates currently range from .1006% to .7543%, depending on the business activity. To determine the gross receipts tax rate for a specific business activity in Delaware, please visit the Tax Tip for your business type. See more information about the Gross Receipts Tax here.

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A legal entity is an individual, company or organization that has legal rights and obligations. There are various types of legal entities recognized under Delaware law. For example: corporations, limited liability companies, limited partnerships and partnerships are all among Delaware legal entities. Each type of legal entity structure has different ownership, control, liability and taxes. (Antonym: sole proprietor, as a sole proprietor cannot be a legal entity).

The maximum benefit amount (MBA) is the total amount of benefits to which the claimant may be entitled.

To form a legal entity in Delaware, your business name has to be unique from all other legal entities already formed in the state. You can search the Delaware Division of Corporations name database online to see if a name is available.

Please note that names might be available when you search, but could be taken by the time you form your business. You can reserve a name for a fee to hold it for 120 days, which will give you time to file your legal entity.

Securing your legal entity name and registering a trade name are two different processes.

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Generally, a business that operates in Delaware:

• Has property (owns, rents, etc.) or has a physical presence in Delaware (principal place of business is in Delaware)
• Has employees in Delaware
• Has assets in Delaware (bank accounts, financial holdings, etc.)

An outside representative can be any third party that is responsible for filing quarterly taxes with the Division of Unemployment Insurance.

A claimant whose hours of work are reduced may be eligible to receive partial unemployment benefits.

An employee leasing company, a professional employment organization (PEO) or any other similar entity isn't considered to be the employer of leased employees.

The services performed by leased employees are considered to be services performed for the employer client company of the employee leasing company, PEO or any similar entity. The employer client company is considered to be the employer of its leased employees.

What this means is that the employer client company is responsible for reporting the gross wages of its leased employees to the Division on Form UC-8A (Quarterly Payroll Report) and for paying any assessments due on the taxable wages of its leased employees to the Division as reported on Form UC-8 (Quarterly Tax Report).

A publicly traded company (also called a public company) is one that issues stocks that are traded on the open market, either on a stock exchange or the over-the-counter market.

Individual and institutional shareholders constitute the owners of a publicly traded company, in proportion to the amount of stock they own. Shareholders thus have final say in all decisions made by a publicly traded company and its managers, especially through its annual shareholders' meeting.

Publicly traded companies have greater access to financing than other companies, as they have the ability to issue more stock. However, they are subject to greater regulation. For example, they must file 10-K reports with the SEC on their earnings and they are more likely to be subject to corporate taxes.

The UC-8 is used to calculate and report the unemployment insurance tax due for the quarter.

The UC-8A is a detailed listing of employee names, social security numbers and wages paid to each employee during the quarter.

The UC-8C is a form used only when necessary to notify the Division of Unemployment Insurance of changes in employer status or to correct information preprinted on Forms UC-8/8A.

The Payment Coupon form must be completed and returned with the employer's payment and Forms UC-8/8A.

An otherwise eligible individual receiving a retirement pension or annuity from a base period employer will be paid a reduced Weekly Benefit Amount (WBA). The WBA will be less a dollar for dollar deduction for the employer-financed portion of the pension, annuity or periodic payment which is based on that individual's previous work.

Benefits payable to an individual under Title 19 § 3302 or under any other state law (including benefits payable to federal civilian employees and ex-service persons pursuant to 5 U.S.C. Chapter 85) other than additional and extended benefits.

A rehire credit is a reduction in an employer's benefit wage charges. This results from the rehire of an employee during a claim benefit year before more than 75% of the total benefits that the employee was entitled to have been paid.

A sole proprietorship is the simplest and most common structure that people chose when they start a business. It's an unincorporated business, owned and run by one individual with no distinction between the business and the owner. Owners are entitled to all profits and responsible for all of their business’ debts, losses and liabilities. Because sole proprietors are unincorporated, they do not file with the Delaware Division of Corporations. Sole proprietors who are operating in Delaware must have a Division of Revenue Business License. See more about sole proprietors on the Small Business Administration site.

The state experience factor is the total benefits paid from the Delaware Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund during the last three experience years, divided by the total benefit wages of all employers for the same three years.

The taxable wage base consists of the wages, subject to unemployment insurance tax, paid to covered employees in a calendar year.

A trade name—or assumed, fictitious or "doing business as" (DBA) name—is a business name that is different from your personal name, the names of your partners or the officially registered name of your LLC or corporation.

It’s important to note that when you form a business, the legal name of the business defaults to the name of the person or entity that owns the business, unless you choose to rename it and register it as a DBA name.

If you are a sole proprietor in Delaware and your business name will be different than your personal name, then you must file with the Prothonotary's Office in all of the Counties in which you plan to transact business to obtain your unique DBA.

Delaware levies a training tax on wages paid by liable employers. The state uses these funds to provide industrial training or retraining for dislocated workers, school-to-work transition services and career ladder training for state employees.

Training tax bills are mailed to employers on a semi-annual basis. Interest accrues and is collectible on all unpaid training tax assessments at the same rate applied to delinquent unemployment insurance assessments, i.e. .085%.

The Unemployment Insurance Program, established by the Social Security Act of 1935, arose from the need to provide workers with funds for non-deferrable expenses while between jobs. Unemployment insurance is not welfare. Benefits are paid as a matter of right, without regard to need, to claimants who meet the eligibility conditions fixed by law. To qualify, workers must have earned sufficient base period wages from covered employers, have become unemployed through no fault of their own, and be able to work, available for work and actively seeking work.

The Weekly Benefit Amount (WBA) can vary. When the balance in the Delaware Unemployment Trust Fund is equal to or greater than $90 million, an individual's weekly benefit amount will be determined by taking 1/46 of their total covered wages paid during the two quarters of the individual's base period in which such wages were highest.

When the Trust Fund balance is less than $90 million, an individual's weekly benefit amount will be 1/52 of their total wages paid during the two quarters of the individual's base period in which such wages were highest.

The minimum weekly benefit amount is $20 and the maximum weekly benefit amount is $330.

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